Closeup video on Grafting Larva

[capt44]

There are a lot of videos on grafting but most don't get you to where you can actually see what's happening.
Here is the best closeup video on grafting I have found to date.
It is in Russian but you can see what he is doing.
Here is a link to the video.
http://vid291.photobucket.com/albums/ll312/capt44/GRAFTING%20CLOSEUP%20RUSSIAN_zpsixiueufs.mp4

[iddee]

I agree. Best one I have seen. Thanks for posting it.

[LazyBkpr]

Holy smokes... I envy anyone who has hands that steady.

[Les]

That was great, thank you so much.  Being a newbie, I think I remember that all larvae are initially fed royal jelly and then switched over to the basic bee bread if they are not going to be made into a queen. Since the larvae is removed from the royal jelly, is royal jelly added to the graft or is it left up to the female workers to supply it?

[capt44]

It really up to the grafter whether to use royal jelly or not.
Me personally I like to wet graft.
I purge the plastic cells with a 50/50 mixture of royal Jelly and distilled water.
When I put the larva into the cell cup it actually floats off the grafting tool.
I use the German Grafting tool (small end)

[pistolpete]

neat.  BTW, it's german, not russian.

For me the OTS has worked amazingly well, but I'm fascinated with grafting and everything that goes into it.   

[Lburou]

Thanks for that link capt!  :-)

I might try the big end of that German tool sometime, it looked pretty good in that video.

Any more queen grafting secrets you want to share....?

[capt44]

Here's a trick I learned to steady the grafting tool when removing larva or placing larva in a plastic cell.
I purge the plastic cell with royal jelly.
When I go to remove the larva from the wax cell I let my grafting tool lay against the side of the cell to steady it.
It helps steady my hands on days I might be shaking a little.
I do the same thing when placing the larva into the plastic cell.

[capt44]

lol German, Russian, it all sounds like ferr'n stuff to me.